Maintenance - June 15, 2020

I went straight to the garden after work today.  Didn't even stop by the house to pee.  I intended to just look at things and see what needed to be done tomorrow.  But when I checked on the purple hull peas, I saw ants parading up and down the stems.  You know what that means:  aphids.  They secrete something that is reportedly like crack to ants.  So I loaded up the sprayer and doused the peas, and gave the tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers a shot for good measure. 

After that, I pulled grass out of the green bean rows.  I have given up on trying to chop the grass out with a hoe.  The bean plants are a hoe width apart, but they lean over so that the root is here (.) and the bushy part is here ( --------------->), and I end up chopping down about every 10th bean plant.  Pulling the grass works better. 

I can't squat to pull the grass; my knees don't want to do it, and if I do manage to get in a squatting position, I need a crane to lift me up.  Twenty years ago, I ruptured a disc - one that's right in the middle of my back - and the neurosurgeons wouldn't work on it.  Oddly, from the minute the disc ruptured, I have been able to bend from the waist without much pain, and so that's how I pull the grass - bent double like a hairpin, moving move sideways, backwards, and forwards without raising up.  This evening, I spent about two hours in this position, and when I DID finally stand up straight, I felt drunker than Cooter Brown for a minute.  And my back went, "WTF?"

By this time, The Husband had walked down to the garden and was chopping grass from the middles.  I said, "Let's give it up."  We put away the sprayer and the hoe and came home.  I went straight to the shower.  The sports bra I was wearing was so wet I didn't even want to pull it over my head, so I just wore it into the shower, soaped it up, rinsed it, and then peeled it off.  Same deal with my shoes.  They are upside-down in my bathroom sink, draining as we speak.  (Don't panic; they are washable.)

The Husband, bless his heart, had done a drive-by at Popeye's on his way home from work, so we didn't even have to cook tonight. 

If I can get up out of this chair and make it to the bed, I'm going to read a page or two of my book.  I'm reading The Three Musketeers.  It came as part of a "50 books everyone should read before they die" collection.  Books like Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, probably For Whom the Bell Tolls.  I know there's a Sinclair Lewis in there - The Jungle? - and probably Tolstoy.  I started with Musketeers partly because there currently happens to be a Musketeers series showing on PBS.  I know I must have read this book growing up, mostly likely in grammar school, but it was probably an abridged version, or an "age-appropriate" version.  I'm enjoying these characters more as a grown-up.  As part of an armchair puzzle quest I did a few years ago, I studied the time period in which the story is set, and am familiar with the real-life characters of Richelieu and Louis. 

That d'Artagnen is the MAN, ain't he?  ;)  I'm halfway through the book, and he has not yet failed to out-wit or best every challenger.